| > Owning a house where your equity in it is over a million is absolutely wealthy. Only ~30% of home owners own their outright. ~60% own 40% of the house or less. I'd argue that you can't own more than ~92% of a home, because it costs a lot to sell a house... The "average" homeowner moves every ~7 years in the US, and this is heavily skewed to people with less equity - the people who outright own typically have stayed put 20+ years. So "owning" a million dollar home means anything from: you put 3.5% down, and you're currently underwater cause prices went down in a lot of the US (i.e. you are literally own NEGATIVE equity)... to you actually have $1m in equity. I "own" a $1.2m home. I really only own about $425k of it. If I had to sell it, that typically costs close to 9% - so I'd be lucky to get $300k. The person underwater who put 3.5% down on a home could easily have -$250k if they had to sell... So the idea that everyone who "owns" a $1m house is "rich" is a bit strange... I mean, in general, people who "own" $1m houses are not destitutely poor, but that's about as far as you can extrapolate. |